CEO Insights Magazine

Worknests: Your Business Growth Partner

MD & CEO

Despite the immense benefits that co-working spaces bring to the fore, the industry in India is still at its nascent stage, courtesy the lack of awareness of the benefits both for consumers and potential JV partners. Especially in cities like Kolkata, the absence of a vibrant and booming startup ecosystem is a further challenge. However, the sector is witnessing a gradual acceptance due to its concept of stay and grow, which enables not only the startups, but also the MNCs who can divert their focus, time and cost from the non-core activities of their business to the productive zone. Enabling the businesses in the city of Kolkata to reap the benefit of world-class co-working space is Worknests.

Co-founded by Rajesh Goyal (MD & CEO), Worknests in all true sense transpires to your personal nest through its customized services. Rajesh uses his decades of experience working with global clients across the world to create this experience that not just enables, but empowers his clients to do more. In an exclusive interview with CEO Insights, he delves deep into the organization’s uniqueness, its offerings and the way forward.

What inspiredyou to incept a co-working company?
Before starting Worknests, I had spent almost two decades working in the IT industry in various leadership roles for global companies. I had the opportunity to travel to and work across the globe, with clients and teams in Japan, China, Australia, Singapore, Europe and US, and had experienced first-hand the workplaces, offices and environments in those countries and client offices. I always wanted to bring that culture to the Indian companies, where they can be proud of their work environment, and that is what I have created through Worknests.

Tell us what makes Worknests unique among the peers.
Our vision is ‘to build a vibrant environment for businesses and professionals to work connect, collaborate and feel inspired by each other; a work environment that one feels proud of’. Hence, we have

designed Work nests in tune with this vision. We want every one working here to feel excited about coming to work every morning and feel so proud of the workplace that they want to show it off to friends and families as ‘such a cool, vibrant and wonderful place to work from’. We have built Work nests into a best-in-class co-working and serviced office environment and have infused best practices from across the globe from places like San Francisco, New York, Amsterdam, Singapore and others and combined them with the local sensitivities of India.

We believe in offering complete solution that addresses not just our customer’s immediate needs, but also future requirements

Our work space and cabins have been ergonomically designed to make one feel comfortable and at home, even while working. We are open 24x7, and our facilities & amenities include a spacious Lounge, a grand Reception area, a cozy Reading Corner and a tastefully done Café that serves beverages, snacks and light food.

Could you highlight the product mix and the complete solution you offer to your clients, and how is it adding value to the customers?
We offer a wide variety of options designed according to the needs of free lancers, startups, professionals, SMEs as well as big businesses. Our major strengths are our ‘Elasticity’ (can start from single seater or even a virtual office and move into bigger, private offices as the business grows) and ‘Flexibility’ (book by the hour or take a longer-term contract apart from the customized contracts for each customer based on their priorities, plans and constraints).

We believe in offering complete solution that addresses not just our customer’s immediate needs, but also future requirements. Hence, we sit with the customers to understand their business, mission/ vision and plans along with the pain areas in the current setup. We also ensure that they have assured availability of work spaces to cater to their growth.

Our support services further extend to HR, Accounting, Chartered Accountants, Legal, Branding and others, through an ecosystem of curated partners.

Further, we have empowered our team to take quick decisions and actions. Our onsite Community Manager, IT support team, and Café

Manager attend to any customer needs with sub-second response times. As an edge to our service, we hold regular events to bring together everyone working from Work nests facilities, which is expanding and becoming a vibrant & connected one. We also have a ‘Work nests CEO Club’ to facilitate interactions, at least quarterly, between the CXOs of companies that work out of Worknests.

What are the various technologies you use to offer seamless service to your clients?
Our facilities are equipped with super-fast Wi-Fi enabled with best-in-class network equipment like firewall and access control. Individual and company-wise access is enabled to prevent any breach of privacy. Access to workplace is controlled through latest Access Control hardware and software for access through card, finger print and pass code. A tab-based visitor management system is installed to manage and track all visitors. Visits can also be pre-scheduled online by the host to allow faster access to the visitors.

But technology is not all that connects us with our clients. It is our endeavour to be their business partner rather than just a provider of chairs and tables; hence, I connect with them personally and interact to understand their views, feedback, concerns and issues, if any.

Any innovation that we could see from Work nests?
Yes! We are working on a few things, one of which is to enable customers to self-design their workplace with the click of a mouse.

What is the future roadmap you have scripted for Worknests?
Currently, we are focused on expanding in Kolkata. But by this year end, we plan to expand to other cities starting from the Eastern region. By 2025, we plan to have at least 50,000 seats across the country.

Rajesh Goyal, MD & CEO
Holding over two decades of experience working in various global leadership roles for companies like Cognizant, Atos and Britannia Industries, Rajesh is scripting a fresh story of co-working in the ‘City of Joy’, the beautiful city of Kolkata.